1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and a masking apparatus for presenting information to be learned and/or memorized, involving the reduction of a sentence, phrase, or list of information to be memorized into a special format, and a sequential presentation of the reduced text. During the presentation of the reduced text, the sentence, phrase, or list of information is recited while viewing, then masking, columns of text, reduced text cues and non-text cues. Conditioned physical responses through vocalization and subvocalization and conditioned mental responses to a series of gradually reduced visual cues are used to store and recall the rhythm and content of the text being memorized.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Methods for presenting information to be memorized are, in general, known. For example, a method for presenting information is described in U.S. Pat. No. 203,988, issued to Charles Bailey on May 21, 1878. In this patent, the educational appliance is a revolving letter indicator, consisting of a revolving letter disk, a radially slotted guard plate, a rim flange, indicator, handle, and pivot. A disadvantage of this method for presenting information is that the slot is of limited width, admitting only a single letter or figure to be viewed. As a result, this device may not be used to present phrases or text. Furthermore, this device does not allow the sequential presentation of successively reduced text.
In another method for presenting information to be memorized, the information is reduced to an acronym and the acronym is memorized. The disadvantage of methods using acronyms is that multiple essentially meaningless acronyms are memorized, with the result that the significance of the acronyms is forgotten.